adore as we do, if you had the happiness to know her. Is
it for the poet of the lover of Gabrielle to carry desolation into the
kingdom of the Graces?

"Your correspondents use you ill by leaving you in ignorance, that this
young person has immense favor here; that we are all at her feet; that
she is all powerful, and her anger is to be particularly avoided. She
is the more to be propitiated, as yesterday, in Presence of a certain
person whom your verses had greatly irritated, she took up your defence
with as much grace as generosity. You see, sir, that you ought not to be
on bad terms with her.

"My uncle allows me to see, as one of the initiated, what you call your
scraps, which are delicious feasts to us. I read them to the lady in
question, who takes great delight in reciting, or hearing others recite,
your verses, and she begs you will send her some as a proof of your
repentance. Under these circumstances, if your bellicose disposition
urges you on to war, we hope, before you continue it, that you will
loyally and frankly declare it.

"In conclusion, be assured that I shall defend you to my utmost, and am
for life,

"Yours, etc."

Whilst we were awaiting Voltaire's reply, I determined to avenge myself
on the duchesse de Grammont, who had encouraged him in his attack; and
thus did I serve this lady. Persuaded that she did not know the writing
of his Danish majesty, I wrote the following letter to her:--

"MADAME LA DUCHESSE,--I have struggled to this time to avoid confessing
to you how I am subdued. Happy should I be could I throw myself at your
feet. My rank alone must excuse my boldness. Nothing would equal my
joy if this evening, at the theatre at madame de Villeroi's, you would
appear with blue feathers in your head-dress. I do not add my name; it
is one of those which should not be found at the bottom of a declaration
of love."

In spite of all her penetration, the duchesse de Grammont did not
perceive, in the emphatic tone of this letter, that it was a trick.
Her self-love made her believe that a woman of more than forty could be
pleasing to a king not yet twenty. She actually went in the evening to
madame de Villeroi's dressed in blue, with a blue plumed head-dress. She
was placed next to his Danish majesty. Christian VII addressed her in
most courteous terms, but not one word of love.

The duchesse imagining that the prince was timid, looked at him with
eyes of tenderness, and endeavored to attrac